Page:A Comprehensive History of India Vol 1.djvu/385

 Chap. VIII.] NEW CROWN CHARTERS. 351

(licherry, that they were unable to maintain their own ground against a French ad. 1002. fleet of four ships, mounting respectively sixty-six, sixty, forty, and twenty guns, which had made its appearance on the west coast of India, and captured one of the Company's ships within fifty miles of Bombay. This loss was some- settlement

• 1 1 rii • 1 ^^ Kort St

what counterbalanced by a gam on the east coast, where legnapatam, situated Davia. only about twelve miles south of Pondicherry, was acquired by purchase from a native prince, and immediately converted into the strong and important settle- ment of Fort St. David. It is rather curious, that while the French, with whom we were then at war, allowed the Company quietly to fortify themselves in their immediate vicinity, the Dutch, our allies, manifested the utmost jealousy, and refused to recognize the right which the Company claimed, in virtue of their pm'chase, to levy harbom* dues and customs.

CHAPTEH YIIL

New crown charters — Hostile feeling of the House of Commons — Wholesale bribery and scandalous disclosures — Rival Company established by act of parliament.


 * OTH the disgraceful termination of the war in which the Com-

i[i pany had engaged with the Mogul, and the state of the public

mind produced by the Revolution, gave great advantages to their

enemies, who endeavoured, by a petition which they presented

^^^t to the House of Commons, to prove that nothing but the estab-

f-i^^^^*;?^

Hshment of a new Company was able to save the East India trade from being Parii.imen-

ni • -111 • • • ^^ resolu-

entirely lost to the nation. The question raised by the ])etition was too impor- tiom tant not to attract considerable attention ; and a committee, appointed by the house, to take cognizance of it, began by requiring an exact state of the Com- pany's accounts, an estimate of their stock, goods, cash, and debts, and a view of the correspondence both at home and abroad. The Company meanwhile met the petition of their opponents with a counter-petition, and both sides having been fully heard, resolutions were adopted, laying down a series of general pro- positions as to the terms on which the trade to the East Indies should in future be carried on. The most important of the resolutions were — " That a sum not less than o(?l,500,000, and not exceeding i^2, 000,000, was a fund neces.sary to carry on the East India trade in a joint stock — that no one person should pos- sess any larger share than of 5000, nor have more than one vote — that no i)rivate contracts should be made, but all goods be sold at public sales by inch of candle, except saltpetre for the use of the crown, and in lots each not exceeding at one time the value of .i^oOO — that all di dends be made in monev, and no dividend